Analysis of methods

The necessity for low-impact warfare.

The Aggression Threshold

Imagine arranging someone's possible actions onto a scale according to how offensive they are, ordered from least offensive to most offensive. Let's say zero is not offensive at all, and one hundred is the most offensive thing you can imagine. If you commit an action with an offensiveness score of zero (say, offer me a nice cup of tea), I won't be offended. If you commit an action with an offensiveness score of one hundred (say, murder my loved ones), I will seek revenge. Somewhere in between is my aggression threshold. Starting from zero, if you become gradually more offensive towards me, then I will become gradually more annoyed until my threshold is reached, and then I will take aggressive action against you.

One of the key features of passive aggressive abuse is always to make sure that your actions remain below your victim's aggression threshold, and even more so, to ensure that it remains below observers' aggression threshold. Fly underneath the radar. Certainly in the case of public or 'ambient' abuse, one of the key features of mental abuse is to always make sure that your actions remain below your victim's aggression threshold. This means that you can continue to mentally abuse them and they will be unsure how to respond.

Once you have the victim securely in your grasp, of course, then you can drop the mask, at least in private. When choosing a victim, someone who has an unusually high aggression threshold would be particularly suitable. This means that men are particularly vulnerable to mental abuse by women, because they are trained from birth to artificially raise their aggression threshold when they are dealing with women; an action which would get a man a beating can often be committed by a woman with impunity. People who under-react are much more likely to be bullied than someone who has a quick temper. Mental abuse has to be pitched in such a way that no individual incident is serious enough to merit a formal complaint. If the victim complains about something so seemingly trivial, they will seem petulant and churlish and elicit little sympathy from those around them.

The damage is caused by the cumulative effect of constant low-level abuse over a long period. It would be naïve to underestimate the effectiveness of such methods. Tree-roots can bring down a castle wall. It just takes time. Pretending to be helpless is an important tactic for the attacker. The idea of passive-aggressive hostility is being able to attack your victim without them being able to retaliate, and without anyone else thinking anything is wrong. If this is done well, then they may not realise that they have been attacked until later, by which time the opportunity to retaliate has passed.

Alternatively, they may realise that they have been attacked but the verbal attack either has another (innocent) interpretation, or is mild enough to be on the edge of social acceptability, so that taking offence would appear churlish. To achieve this effect, you can use some of the following techniques:

• Smiling and using a sweet tone of voice and friendly, even affectionate, body language as you deliver the attack.
• Framing the attack as a double entendre with another innocent interpretation.
• Delivering the attack by speaking to a third party within your victim's earshot, not to your victim directly.
• Speaking quietly as you (or your victim) are walking away.
• Hovering within the victim's earshot and muttering under your breath instead of confronting the victim directly.
• Being well-versed in the etiquette of middle-class social life and using it as a cover. Always have impeccable manners. Always remember everyone's birthday, and give generously. Always outwardly observe the social niceties. In this way, you can establish a reputation for yourself as someone of unimpeachable character. If you then accompany your actions with bitchy remarks, delivered with a smile, the chances are that no-one will notice. If you manipulate things behind the scenes, no-one will believe it.
• Accompany the attack with an act of kindness. Publicly give them a present and privately spread rumours about them.

The idea of using these techniques is that the victim knows that they are being attacked, but other people in the vicinity may not realise it, the victim will be reluctant to complain, and if they do complain, they will probably not be taken seriously. Indeed, others may form the opinion that the victim is paranoid or delusional.

These techniques are about circumventing retaliation - creating a situation in which you can persecute your victim with impunity. The victim knows that they are being attacked, but simply does not know what to do about it, and will have no credibility should they attempt to come forward. This kind of harassment can subject the victim to extreme psychological stress. Such a campaign of persecution can be pursued for months or even years, with serious mental and physical health consequences for the victim. It is very difficult to combat, as I know from experience.

Undermining other relationships
You are in a group with two other people, A and B. If you want to establish a dominant position for yourself within the group, there are three things you can do: 1 Establish a strong relationship with A 2 Establish a strong relationship with B 3 Create enmity between A and B The first two items do not necessarily mean becoming good friends; it does not have to be a warm relationship. It just needs to be a relationship which allows you to influence that person. It could be a relationship of dominance and intimidation, or it could be one of warmth and trust. The important thing is that you are in a position to influence that person’s actions and opinions. Item 3 prevents any possible rival power bloc from emerging. This one is interesting enough to look at in more detail. It is not necessary that A and B become full-blown enemies; the important thing is that they do not become staunch allies. A vague mutual distrust and suspicion is enough. Any emergent relationship between A and B needs to be undermined, and this mutual distrust between them needs to be maintained. Many of the techniques outlined here are useful in attempting to undermine other people’s relationships. The most generally useful one is probably vicious gossip. If you constantly drip-feed A negative information about B, and vice versa, you will prevent them from trusting or respecting each other. However, in order to achieve this, you need to have negative information to pass on.

An important use of this in larger groups is to create conflicts between people who might otherwise compare notes and cross-reference evidence against you (Hare)

Gathering Dirt
In order to engage in vicious gossip, you need to have ammunition. There are methods you can use to gather negative information about others, but if all else fails, you can simply make it up. It doesn’t matter if negative information is true or not. All that matters is that it is believed. The main techniques of gathering dirt are as follows:

• The Little Black Book. This is probably the most basic method. Capitalise on others’ mistakes or misfortunes. If something unfortunate happens to your target, or if they should do something which could be construed as a breach of social etiquette, always milk it for maximum political capital. You may choose to publicly ridicule them about it, but at the very least, you should make sure that everyone in their peer group knows about it. It’s important that they should not receive any sympathy for their misfortunes; rather you should try to create the opinion that it was their own fault and/or they deserved it.
• Mummy’s little helpers - Persuade others to gather titbits of gossip for you.
• Surveillance - Subject the victim’s appearance, actions, speech and body language to an abnormal and unreasonable degree of scrutiny, or get your helpers to do so. This is not only a useful method of intelligence-gathering, but it is in itself a method of applying psychological pressure. It is unpleasant for the victim to be scrutinised in this way.
• Espionage. This is really a special case of surveillance, and would include actions such as reading someone’s personal diary or email, or searching through their room, bag, pockets, or even garbage, when they are not present.
• Give them enough rope – Lull them into a false sense of security, and then attempt to lure them into inappropriate self-disclosure.
• The Market Research survey – this is a more structured case of the last method. Instead of just allowing them to talk, actually elicit their preferences on key topics by asking probing questions.
• You’ve been framed. Convict them of crimes they haven’t committed by planting evidence and/or concocting stories.

Having gathered dirt, you must then carefully husband it. Never let it go. Rule 2 in the abuser’s handbook is: Never let bygones be bygones. Always keep the target’s past mistakes fresh in everyone’s mind. Always rake up the past, never let it die. Constantly reinforce the target’s status as a target.

How to avoid becoming a target: You can give the information out, but once it’s out, it’s too late; you can’t take it back. The only defence is not to give it out in the first place. When you meet new people, set boundaries. Do not be gullible, do not be led into inappropriate self-disclosure.